


Roots

by morvish



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Meeting, Found Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 21:03:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7284706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morvish/pseuds/morvish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance attempted a smile.</p><p>Hunk beamed.</p><p>In which Lance and Hunk become friends over illicit late night noodles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roots

It’s not that they would have made a huge deal about it or anything. It’s not that he would have had a better time – it’s not that he feels like he’s _missing out_ on anything. Lance’s birthday is no big thing, you know.

Well – except, yes OK, his family _would_ have made a huge deal out of it. They make a huge deal out of everything. And yeah, alright – he could concede, possibly, that he might have a better time if he was at home and not on a strict training diet with a strict training regime in a strict training facility. Maybe, just maybe, he would be missing out on _some_ things.

But it’s not about that.

Well, yeah OK, it kind of was about that.

He rolled over in his sardine bed. He’d named them. The beds. He’d named them sardine beds the first day they got there.

“Because we’re packed in like sardines, look, there’s like,” at this point, Lance had athletically jumped between two of the said beds, and made measuring gestures with his hands, “there’s like five inches between them. Like sardines.”

His roommates had found it really funny actually.

There had been one voice of dissent – or, at least, one voice which piped up afterwards, a big hand raised behind the small throng of cadets as though Lance had asked them a question and also as though Lance was some sort of instructor.

“Um, I’m pretty sure sardines are like,” the boy had stepped through the murmuring hub of kids, now dissipating as they moved to decide on their own beds, presumably content that the tension of the first day had been rubbed away by Lance’s awesome tension-rubbing-away skills. The boy used his fingers to make measuring gestures, like Lance’s, but a lot smaller. “Their tins aren’t even five inches wide. And that’s _with_ all the sardines in it.”

“So what are you saying?” Lance had asked, cocking an eyebrow. “That we’re … sardine tins?”

“No, no, I wouldn’t make that kind of presumption,” the boy had waved his hands about frantically, as though he hadn’t realised he was explicitly disagreeing with Lance. “Maybe just, more like astroexplorers – who live in a sardine can. Hey, do you think we can get sardines here?”

That had been the first time Lance spoke to Hunk. That had been a few days ago.

Since then, there’d been nonstop drills, lessons, yelling and grey tasteless food (except the one time they got mac ‘n’ cheese and it was – so good). And now there was going to be a strangely lonely birthday. Lance knew that birthdays weren’t really celebrated in the base – and that was cool, he was totally fine with that, no big deal.

He lay back and stared at the ceiling. There were some dark unidentified splotches of the dark and unidentifiable splotch variety looming above him. He closed his eyes.

He missed his moms. He missed his dog, and his cats, and the guinea pigs. He almost even kind of missed his sisters, and his aunts and uncles. He definitely missed his grandma. Most of all though, he just missed – home.

He couldn’t pin it down to one thing or even a bunch of things; not the smells, or the sounds. Not the way he fell into his bed at a curved angle every night because of that one lump; not the way his little sister squealed and shrieked when he would pick her up and pretend to feed her to the chickens; not even the way he knew exactly how to make every single one of the people who lived in their cluster of farmhouses laugh.

He just missed it as a big wholesome thing. He missed home. Even the very word: home.

It sat on his chest like a heavy lump of unexpected and unwanted sadness.

Lance stretched his arms, unwittingly brushing one against the face of the kid in the next bed over, Greg. Greg grumbled, but didn’t wake. Lance breathed a sigh of relief, and shuffled into a seated position. He tried to shake the lumpy sadness off, but it wasn’t working, and it wasn’t letting him sleep. So he pulled on some socks, and traipsed to the door.

He opened it a crack, flushing heaps of light into the dorm room. There were various cries of protestation from the others in the dorm room. Lance skipped out quickly. The base kept the corridor lights on at night apparently – presumably for people who needed to do midnight toilet trips, or needed medical attention, or were just horribly homesick and couldn’t sleep. All he knew, as he winced at the faintly buzzing brightness, was that if he hadn’t been awake before, he sure was now.

He grumbled, and tried to convince himself he knew leaving his bed would make him even less tired. But then he reasoned, he had the whole base to himself pretty much. Sure, there’d probably be guards on duty, eh, somewhere – but this was a good excuse to explore.

His feet had already started walking one way, so he decided to continue his meander in that direction. He knew he was vaguely headed towards more dorms, which seemed like a pretty safe area to not run into soldiers on duty, but the base was big, and he’d only been there a few days. Even though he did have a very good memory for these sorts of things. If he was placing his bets, then when he turned right here then – yes, he would reach a dead end, that was exactly what he knew would happen.

He swiftly turned around.

And sniffed.

Something smelt faintly good, and it was smelling better by the second. He followed its scent.

He eventually found himself at the huge double doors he knew led into the kitchen. He knew they did, because they passed them every day, three times a day, when they headed to the canteen. He had yet to go into the kitchen yet – he didn’t have kitchen duty till the week after next. He pushed a hand against one of the doors, thinking this would be a good chance to get an idea of the place. His hand paused on the door, halfway through pushing it open, when he belatedly realised that the smell of prepared food generally requires a person to prepare food to occur.

He began to back out of the door, hoping that whoever was in the kitchen hadn’t noticed his stealthy entrance.

“Lance?” came a stage whisper. “Lance.”  
Lance was stuck between completing his embarrassing exit, or renewing an embarrassing entrance.

The smell of food that wouldn’t be grey or tasteless prompted him towards the latter.

Hunk was hunched over the centre island counter with a bowl of something delicious-smelling, looking vaguely nervous – like he wasn’t sure how Lance would react.

Lance attempted a smile.

Hunk beamed.

“You want some?” he said, pointing at his bowl.

Lance paused for just a moment, then sidled forward.

“It smells pretty good,” he said.

Hunk nodded, taking a huge sniff.

“It’s my dad’s old recipe,” he said with a dopey grin.

“What is it?” Lance asked.

“Hm, a bit of this and that. Mostly noodles, but there’s some other stuff in there.”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“My dad’s recipe is up to interpretation,” Hunk shrugged. “I mostly throw things in and hope it goes OK.”

Lance sniffed dubiously. “Well, it smells good,” he reasoned.

Hunk nodded sagely. “Want a bowl then?”

“Yeah.” Lance dragged a stool out from under a counter and sat on it. “Please.”

Hunk clattered around finding another bowl, then carefully sloshed a heap of noodles, broth, and sundries from one to the other.

Lance watched, only salivating slightly – he swallowed, not realising how hungry homesickness made you. Homesickness and badass independency. Because that was what he was achieving here. Becoming an independent and awesome pilot.

A bowl of beautiful smelling broth and noodles was shoved under his nose and Lance began to slurp at it immediately.

“This is so good,” he mumbled through the noodles.

“It’s not too bad, is it?” said Hunk, with the edge of a laugh in his tone.

Lance propped the bowl back on the counter, and ran a hand across his mouth.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh no, nothing, nothing,” Hunk said, a chuckle bubbling through his words this time. “Just – it doesn’t take much to impress you.”

“What!”

Lance had taste, Lance had _good_ taste. Lance was practically a connoisseur of – of most things. In this world.

“Uh, you’re the dude who liked the powdery mac ‘n’ cheese so.”

Lance threw a hand to his chest in what was nearly actual shock.

“Um,” he lingered on the word. “That mac ‘n’ cheese was – so good.”

“C’mon,” Hunk offered, his eyebrows knit in disappointment, hand outstretched like he was offering Lance a way out of this hole of apparent mac ‘n’ cheese naiveté.

Lance stood his ground.

“No,” he said, taking a fork and twirling his noodles. “No, I will not submit to your peer pressure. That mac ‘n’ cheese was amazing. Sure – it was a _little_ powdery, but hey, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. For mac ‘n’ cheese to be ashamed of.”

Hunk let out a hearty guffaw before shoving another spoonful of broth in his mouth. He gestured with the spoon as he continued.

“Sure,” he said. “Sure. I’ll accept that if you accept that my piloting skills are better than yours.”

“Dude, not even!” They’d had one first run in the first simulator that week and Lance had absolutely definitely been the best. Except for that one guy. The one everyone kept praising. Kevin or Keith or something. Mullet man.

Hunk chuckled again, and it was a glorious sound, it really was. Lance felt his face heat up with pride and happiness. How many times had he made Hunk laugh in the past ten minutes? Enough, he thought. It reminded him of when he would make his family laugh round the dinner table on warm evenings.

He grinned, and was vaguely aware of how lopsided a grin it was.

Hunk clapped him on the shoulder, and paused.

“Are you OK?” he asked very suddenly. Then he hunched over slightly, conspiratorially. “I mean – are you … OK?”

“What?”

“Are you OK?”

“What?”

“Are you … you know, OK?”

“Stop asking me if I’m OK!”

“Sorry, sorry. I mean – are you alright?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well I just,” Hunk took his warm palm from Lance’s shoulder and clasped his own hands together. “I saw you leave the room, and I thought I’d heard you tossing and turning a lot and well I just, I followed you out but then I couldn’t find you but I saw the kitchen and got slightly sidetracked but I - wanted to check you were O- alri- check you were doing good, bud.”

Lance felt a huge pause pass between them in the moment it took him to understand the statement.

Hunk was biting his lip and looking at various cabinets on the other side of the kitchen, like he was unsure his own friendliness was friendly enough.

Lance squeezed his eyes shut, finding it hard to know how to do this. He realised his fists had been clenched, and he snapped his hands open. With only the slightest hesitation, he tried to clap Hunk on the shoulder.

“Oof,” said Hunk, and turned to Lance suddenly with fear in his eyes. Maybe Lance had clapped him too hard. “I didn’t mean to offend you, I was-”

“No, no,” said Lance, leaning forward, hand still sweatily pressed to Hunk’s back. “Thank you,” he said. “I – It’s my birthday tomorrow.” He looked at the clock. “Today?”

“Dude!” cried Hunk.

“Yeah,” said Lance. “And … I think I just miss my family a bit, is all.”

Hunk’s eyes turned soft, and he clapped his hand back onto Lance’s shoulder. A reassuring grasp. “Hey,” he said quietly. “I get that.”

Lance gave him a quick smile, and nodded, before they both turned their heads to look back at the wall ahead of them.

They sat like that for a while, hands resting on each others’ backs, staring into the distance; Lance was unsure of when he was meant to let go, but it was kind of … nice, he supposed. Hunk’s hand was warm and solid, and he could feel some kind of roots begin to grow.

“Happy birthday,” Hunk said eventually.

“Thank you,” said Lance, again, and he meant it.

“We should do something, tomorrow evening!” Hunk said suddenly. “I heard from some of the older cadets you get a really great view of the sunset from the roof. Maybe we could – really quickly, so none of the guards see, but we could go sit there or something. Grab some more broth.”

Lance suppressed his smile. That sounded so great. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “That would be really nice.”

Hunk smiled.

“For now though,” he said, stretching, the warmth of his hand suddenly removed from Lance’s back, though the warmth of the gesture was lingering long and hard in Lance’s chest. “We should go to bed.”

“Heh,” said Lance, as he helped Hunk tidy away the crockery.

They wandered back to the dorm in silence, a happy silence though. The sort of silence where Lance could almost hear the evening chirr of crickets from home, the gentle rustle of a warm breeze through long grass, a low lull of indistinct conversation between family members in the next room over. It was the sort of silence which made him feel slightly more whole again.

Back in the dorm, Hunk turned to grin at Lance just before they shut the door.

“Goodnight, Lance,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, Hunk,” Lance replied.

There were some pained grumbles from a few of the beds, and Lance smirked happily. Hunk huffed a small laugh, and they parted to their separate beds.

Lance fell asleep almost instantly. He was excited for his birthday.

**Author's Note:**

> i love lance. also i love hunk.


End file.
